Wind: early morning, calm (less than 4mph). Mid-morning from the south at 10mph.

PreRace:

We were scheduled to leave on Thursday early morning, but on Wednesday morning, the Air Conditioner in our house broke. We had the A/C guy come to the house, and he wouldn’t be able to fix it until later in the week. The house was 88 degrees inside when we left, and I considered that last afternoon at the house to be “race conditioning”. The timing was actually perfect. We left Wednesday night, and drove 3 hours of the 4 hour drive and found a hotel to sleep in that had a nice A/C.

Friday night (the last supper):

Dinner @ The Cheesecake Factory at 5pm. I ate a salad with a pepperoni pizza. It was good.

Evening (1 salt tablet, 1 bottle of water)

Race Morning:

Alarm: 3:00am

Breakfast at iHop (or is it Ihop or IHOP?) at 3:30am. I had a waffle, syrup, 2 strips of bacon, and 2 eggs. My brother in law joined me, and gave me some last minute calming talk before the race. I updated my Facebook status with the following quote I received a few weeks earlier from a friend of mine: “Everyone comes up with a brilliant plan for Ironman, and then everyone has to deal with the reality that planning for something like Ironman is like landing a man on the moon. By remote control. Blindfolded.”

Our hotel was about 8 miles from the race area, and we left at 4:30am with a car full of my family (wife, and 2 sons) as well as my brother in law and 2 sister in laws. It was great having a support crew there to help with parking the vehicle, cheering for me, picking up my bike and bags, etc. It made it much easier for me, and much easier for my wife.

Dropped off at the transition area (which was about 1 mile from the swim start) and about another ½ mile from the finish. Brother in Law parked the car near the run finish (which would make for a nice evening commute home).

In transition, I did what I needed to do (air up tires, water in bottle#1, Gatorade in bottle#2). I added a couple of other stuff to my T1 & T2 transition bags (nutrition, advil, ???).

Walked to the swim start and got body marked

Swim:

At 6:50, the canon fired for the Pro’s.

At 6:52, my toes went into the water. It was a non-wetsuit race, and the hardest part of the swim for me was the 8 minutes treading water. I’ve never treaded water before, and realized that my natural buoyancy is around eye level. So, I swam for about 5 minutes of the time and setup about mid-pack on the left hand side. When our canon fired at 7:00, it was a little crazy, but I was expecting much worse. My pre-race strategy was to swim the swim, not race the swim. I constantly found swimming partners to sight off of and draft. The water was dirty, so it was very hard to see their knees and ankles when swimming beside them, but the bubbles and water current from their arm stroke got some sunlight near the surface that enabled me to know they were close while I was swimming.

The swim course consisted of about a 1500 yard out (south), 1500 yard in (north), and about 1500 toward transition heading east. Heading north caused challenges sighting because of the sun in the eyes with a jagged shoreline “nearby”. The 1500 yards heading toward transition were along a channel with cement walls on both sides. The channel was only about 40 feet wide, and my 2:00 / 100yard was about the same speed as many others, which made for a surprisingly tight and busy swim section.

Time: 1:23:02, 1:58 / 100yards

Transition 1:

The tent was hot, humid, and dark. I felt fine (since I never pushed myself too hard on the swim). However, with all of the people, I was kind of disoriented while trying to find everything from my bag. I put my HR strap on in Transition. I put my helmet on before my shirt (because my helmet was on top of my shirt in the bag). There were things like that which made for a “less than perfect” Transition 1 time.

Time: 7:47

Bike:

The bike course was smooth and pretty. On my Garmin 310xt, the only thing that I was showing was my HR. I knew my HR was controlled. On mile 3, I had a HR of 155 (which ended out being my maximum HR for the day!). The first 50 miles were with the wind at the back, and the last 50 miles were with a headwind. I maintained a steady pace without burning any matches. On hills, I just rode up the hill allowing others to pass me if they wanted. I drafted legally as much as I could as I was passing other riders and I was surprised how many others had excellent equipment that I was passing with my non-zipp wheels. My Cannondale Slice was a great comfortable ride! I averaged 20.16mph for the first 56 miles, and 19.06mph for the ride back. There were a few tires that blew, and a couple of accidents that I saw, but otherwise, the course was smooth and safe for riding.

Since the tent was hot 6 hours earlier when it was 70+/- degrees, I decided to change my shoes outside in the sun on the grass rather than sit in a hot and stuffy tent. I stopped for a few seconds to talk to my wife and then eventually made my way through the tent and onto the run course. I also used the bathroom. I truly don’t know how I could have save more than a minute or two from the time it took me in transition.

Time: 6:03

Run:

The run course consisted of 3 loops of about 8.4 miles. The first 6 miles were good (decent anyway). I was hoping to run a 10:00 / mile throughout the run, with the true hope of possibly being able to hold onto a 9:00 / mile. However, I found it very hard to maintain a 10:00 pace, and after 7 miles, my back began to spasm. With every right foot step, I felt like it might go into a serious spasm, so my walk breaks became more frequent and more enjoyable. The problem is that I let that last for a long time. For about 2 ½ hours, I couldn’t run. Actually, what I know is that I couldn’t run for a while, and then I decided that I wouldn’t run after a while. My brain won a game and it took 2 ½ hours to decide that I was wrong. About 3.75 hours into the marathon, I decided to run again. Other than walking through the aid stations, I kept on running, and felt very good. During the last mile, I also hit a HR of 155 (matching my maximum HR from the bike from mile 3). My back felt fine. I was able to complete the run (and the race) with my arms raised high and with a smile on my face.

My nutrition was mixed (coke, water, ice, early on migrated to coke, chicken broth, chips with occasional water and ice later in the race).

For 2012, my goal was to finish and enjoy an Ironman. I finished the Ironman. I enjoyed the Ironman.

I want to do another.

Time: 5:11:26, 11:53 / mile

Total Race Time: 12:31:17

What I realized through this journey is that we (all of us here as well as those not reading this) can do so much more than we think we can do.